Now all the sales and property tax back to Trammell Crow for 17 years - estimated at about $13 million

The virtual gifts of city-owned property:

$10 sale price for Park Place Olde Town land

75% discount price to Hilton - property sold for $500,000 on which AURA still owes $3 million

Now $30 sale price for property worth millions of dollars to Trammell Crow - nominal value at $6 million

Remember, all this approved or sanctioned by the same city council that unanimously voted to put a sales tax hike on the November 2016 election ballot -- claiming more money was needed to repair and maintain our deteriorating streets.

Arvada taxes groceries -- this would have been a highly regressive tax increase and resulted in one of the highest sales tax rates in the entire state of Colorado.

Voters wisely turned down this tax hike ... but the above list in part makes clear why city government doesn't have the revenue it needs for a basic city duty like keeping the streets in good order. They've given away current and future tax revenue worth millions and millions of dollars to private, for-profit corporations and developers!

So, while you are paying city sales tax on that gallon of milk, loaf of bread, new shirt, new shoes, replacement toaster, set of dishes, etc. ... you are paying for police, water, sewer, parks ... but the developers and businesses above are rebated the taxes collected thus getting a free-ride on city services.

The entire Denver metro region is now experiencing a remarkable burst of economic growth -- we don't need government hand-outs to developers to entice them to open businesses and build in Arvada.

Arvada is a wonderful community -- new developers and businesses ought to be paying us to locate here!

And they do ... when the free market is allowed to work and Urban Renewal and City Hall let them open here by following the regular rules all developers and businesses have to follow and then pay 100 percent of the taxes they generate like all the rest of us.

The Protect Arvada Taxpayers amendment does not take away any economic development tools for City Hall or the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority, but it does mean that for extraordinary circumstances involving large sums of future tax revenue or sales of public land to private business, we, the people and taxpayer get to be the ultimate decision-makers.

Growth and progress for our community are fully compatible with fiscal responsibility.